Is AGENTS OF SHIELD Better The 2nd Time Around?

When Agents of SHIELD premiered last year, there were a ton of expectations by the fans of what to expect. Many were looking forward to it very much. As it stood, whenever Agent Coulson showed up in an MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movie, a ton of cool, talented bravado showed up and filled the scene perfectly. Agent Coulson showed up in Thor, Captain America, Iron Man… and his mellow and commanding presence was something to enjoy.

So when it was announced that Agents of SHIELD was coming to ABC, there was much anticipation as to what the viewing audience was going to see.

But there was a problem that became evident after the second and third episodes. The show had to pace itself out and kill time and filler episodes while they built up a story that culminated with events in the second Captain America movie. And this time killing practice turned into a horrible experience for the viewers and the show.

They seemed to use different writers per episode who were following a cookie cutter template for their stories and it was very hard for the viewers to want to keep up with the show.

Yet for those of us who did, the payout in the last third of the TV season was fantastic. After Captain America The Winter Soldier screened, events from that movie spilled out into stories in AoS and things got good. Events started to take shape that impacted the characters and it was fun. The tie-in to Cap 2 was nice and we suddenly had a show to watch instead of some serialized cookie-cutter stories. We had a show connected to the MCU and stories were becoming more magical and enticing.

And this continued on into season two of Agents of SHIELD, as the now fragmented SHIELD agency is having a heck of a time pulling itself back together, not knowing who to trust, and not being trusted themselves.

In other words, their job just became tougher.

And with Agent Coulson now being director of what is left with SHIELD, the team dynamic is starting to change and I’m not sure I like it or not. That’s not a bad thing. Good character writing should elicit like and dislikes amongst fans.

BUT…

After the first few episodes I am not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but we’re starting to see what I am calling the “forced quips of Marvel.” In other words, characters are spouting potentially funny quips, but are doing so often enough that the impact of the subtle humor is getting lost in the distraction of these quips seemingly needing to happen once or twice between every commercial break.

It used to be, for example, that when Coulson showed up in an MCU movie, his quips of subtle humor were minimal and amazingly effective. Funny without being humorous. But effective and to the point.

Not it feels like every time he’s on-scree he has to mutter some cute quip.

Not only is that annoying, it is distracting and it is worrisome that the production team is returning to the canned story outlines mode they had in the first half of season one.

Honesty folks, (in the production team), stop. It looks like the show is being written around these quips that HAVE to happen rather than letting it flow.

I hope the show continues on its strong rebound from the debacle that was AoS last season. And so far, it does seem to be retaining its momentum. I just hope the quip-a-minute routine fades from view. Keep the drama, add the rare quip, and move on folks.